Mother’s Day

Well, it wasn’t like we needed another reason to celebrate – but the calendar said Mother’s Day, so we did!

Of course I would rather not have the attention on myself – that is just not my thing!

But these children of mine are very sweet celebrate their Mom in such thoughtful ways!

We were celebrating Kayla too, of course!!

As per tradition, we got some photos on the driveway with the at home crew before we headed to church.

I gave Scottie my phone to take some photos and then later I found ALL of these, ha, ha!


We had all of our BESTS over after church that day and it was truly MY FAVORITE GIFT!

Sundays fill my cup SO full!!!

It was just the most beautiful day that day and we enjoyed being outside the entire time.

Lunch was delicious too!


Of course I also got a photo with my oldest two children!!

I am so glad we stop and take time to do this and freeze these moments in time!


What a sweet day!

I received gifts and cards with words that I do not deserve!

What a privilege it is that seven precious children call me Mom!

I have never felt worthy of that gift!!

Sweet kiddos, I love you each SO MUCH!!

You are a literal answer to my prayers and my dreams have come true by being allowed to be your Mama!!

Thank you for spoiling me on Mother’s Day!!

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!

Looking Back on April!

Not only are we doing a lot of celebrating in our own family, we know A LOT of others that are in this wedding season as well!

We have been to showers and weddings and have several more of both on the calendar!

It is SO very exciting to celebrate these exciting times with our friends!


The Saturday morning right after we had arrived home from Florida, Addie and Scottie asked if I would like to go thrifting with them to find some furniture pieces they needed for their new place.

Of course I said yes!!

I ended up texting Blake asking if it was ok to bring home hutch for our kitchen!

We are always in dire need of storage space – especially in our very busy kitchen!

I got the ok and came home with a new hutch that day.

Stay tuned to see how it turned out after we fixed it up a bit!


We had orthodontist evaluations for Tate and Eliza early in April, and some crazy lady made their appointments for 8 a.m. forty-five minutes away from home.

The lady in charge of our calendar needs to be fired, just saying!

Thankfully we made a day of it, and took some children who grow in their sleep every night clothes shopping so they would actually have things that fit them to wear!

It ended up being a very fun morning!

Don’t be fooled by that iced coffee in my hand – I took two sips and threw it away – so glad I did.

I could tell it wasn’t going to do my health any good!

I also sent Lane back into a store when Kayla messaged me and asked for us to grab a pair of sandals for one of the girls, and he arrived back to the van in record time with exactly what I had asked for – sweet boy!!


Addie ordered wedding dresses on-line to try on at home (genius, by the way!!) – so we took this photo to remember our little try on party and the fact that Addie had found her dress!!!


Our family Sundays are always my FAVORITE!!

Lately other things have been taking up our Sundays – but we always have the family over after church when it works out!

IT FILLS MY CUP SO FULL!!!

Sometimes we get together at David and Kay’s too!

Do you see Kay’s new puppy??

That huge puppy??

His name is Jack!!

Saige calls him “Jack Jack”!


Saigey Grace started walking in April!!

She is the cutest thing ever!!


Kay and I are still doing our monthly bulk shopping!

We died laughing when Kayla sent home a text and got a photo in return!!


I stole some boys one Friday afternoon to stay the night!

It was super fun and I am hoping when things settle down we will be doing a lot of that again.

Things are going to settle down, aren’t they?

Don’t answer that.


We had our last Women to Women gathering at church – we take a break for the summer months and start back up in the fall.

I love helping with this!

Setting up and decorating is really fun!


I visited Addie Mae at work one day and we picked out flowers for the front porch!

Addie does such a wonderful job with our porch, patio, and indoor plants – I need to learn this skill and learn it fast!!

I don’t have much hope for my plants once Addie gets married, ha, ha!


We have had lots of planning, dress fittings, zoom calls, and wedding projects going on here.

It has been super fun!

I do have one photo of Eliza at a dress fitting for Grant and Kamryn’s wedding – her dress turned out beautiful!

I also did a huge photo project for a video slide show for Grant and Kamryn’s wedding – and it took me down memory lane!!


We were blessed to fill our freezer back up!!

Thankful for farmers who do the hard thing and offer healthy meat options!!


Scottie’s Mom and sisters visited for a few days at the end of April!

It was wonderful to see them and spend time with them!!!

We cannot wait until they are here again in just a few weeks!!


All of our animals are doing great and we are enjoying them very much!!

Addie and Scottie will be taking Ruby with them, which of course is NOT ok with all of us here, but obviously the right thing!

We are talking about getting Eliza a puppy – time will tell!


We kept our bird restaurant open this spring.

Usually we take it down sometime in April.

But we had husband and wife cardinals visiting it several times daily!

The male would feed the female, and they were just beautiful to watch.

We knew they had a nest somewhere – and sure enough we saw their babies visiting the feeder eventually!

So much normal life lived along side all of the things of this busy season.

These are my favorite kind of photos!

I will let the photos tell their story!

So many great memories we make here.


Ok, now for the FOOD!!!

If you are not here for the food, scroll on past!!

I hope these photos inspire you, though, the way they inspire me when I look back on them!

I seriously went to this little ole blog of ours recently to get some food ideas!!


Clearly we do not like to eat, ha, ha!!

Nor do I love to be in my kitchen, ha, ha!!

I am thankful for my love of cooking and baking….and EATING!

I read this quote this week: “The student becomes like his teacher” – so hopefully all of this good cooking and healthy eating will rub off on my children!

It really is me here after all this time.

I will add my signature to this post just so you know!


April feels like YEARS ago!

We are really almost through June.

Addie and Scottie’s wedding is a mere three weeks away!

It has gone SO FAST.

Makes me super thankful to have this space here to keep our memories like I used to in those scrapbooks all those years ago.

May held one of the VERY BEST days of our lives and I cannot wait to relive it here in this space!!

Stay tuned!!!

Until then….

Celebrating Some More!!

HEEELLLLLOOOOOO!!!!!

Anybody out there???

I HAVE SO MUCH TO TELL YOU!!!!

Ok, here we go!!

After we arrived home from Florida back at the beginning of April, we had LOTS more celebrating to do!

There was another shower for Kamryn and the next weekend we had a girl’s get together for Kamryn as well.

It was all SO FUN!!

This second shower for Kamryn was a Pampered Chef shower – which was a GREAT idea!


Then we spent a Saturday enjoying a lovely brunch at the Charmant in downtown La Crosse and a painting class after that at All Glazed Up.

It was such a fun day!!

The Charmant is a beautiful place and it was such a beautiful day!


The painting class stretched some of us, ahem, but others were naturals at painting a canvas.

We had a lot of fun chatting and painting and just being together!


We were just weeks away from the BIG DAY (which obviously now I know was WORTH THE WAIT!!).

Such a fun season with all of the get togethers, all of the planning, all of the anticipation – I cannot believe it is over!

Now we are anticipating Addie and Scottie’s wedding and just had a bridal shower for Addie!

See – I told you I have SO MUCH TO TELL YOU!!!

I hope to catch up this little scrapbook of ours – so hold on tight – lots of posts coming up!!

Kamryn Shay, what a joy it was to celebrate with you!!!

You are my DAUGHTER-IN-LAW!!!

Dreams come true and I love you SO MUCH!!

Our 35th Anniversary!

Based on the ending of my last post, you probably already know what this post is about!

YEP!!

We DID go to Florida!!

It seems like years ago now, but we enjoyed five days away the first week of April.

It was WONDERFUL!!

We hopped on a plane in Minneapolis on Monday morning, and landed in Fort Myers in the early afternoon.

The weather was literally perfect the entire week – as per usual!


The first order of business upon our arrival was getting some groceries.

Travel days are slim in the eating department!!

We were hungry but only ended up having snacks for dinner because we did not want to take the time to cook!


Mornings started early for me, as I am an early bird.

We had a beautiful suite we were staying in that allowed that to be ok!!

I really enjoyed the area we stayed this time as it had the most beautiful spot to walk on sidewalks around beautiful lakes.

Early morning walks are something I wish I could do in Wisconsin!


Blake and I would head down to the pool area pretty early each day.

I just wanted to be outside 24/7 while we were there!!

I love sunshine and warm temperatures and could have slept out there too!!

We ate our lunch around the pool each day.


Pretty soon I was getting photos from back home because they were having a blizzard of all things!

That had not been predicted before we left, just saying!

I felt so bad for the kids – but was thankful that everyone was together at home because no one could work due to the snowstorm.


Tuesday afternoon Blake and I headed to one of our favorite spots to get a smoothie and enjoy sitting outside.

We love Food For Thought!

They have live music each evening, but we wanted to head to the beach to watch the sunset – which is exactly what we did!


These next photos were taken in order – watch that sun disappear!!

It was SO SO beautiful – sunsets on the beach are sunsets like no other!!


We headed back to grill some dinner Tuesday night and did not end up eating until 10 p.m.!!

Life with no schedule was pretty sweet!!


Wednesday morning my hubby treated me to a manicure and pedicure.

It was so relaxing.

Of course we headed to the pool right after that and spent the day there again.

The mornings there always start with clouds, but they never last long!!


We grilled our dinner again that evening, but this time ate much earlier.

I enjoyed sitting outside being moral support while my hubby cooked our meal, ha, ha!


The BEST part about our trip, just so you all know, is the constant conversations.

Blake and I have many, many things that need discussed all the time, but we live in a home where there is zero privacy and zero time to have those converations!

It is the season we are in – a VERY good season – but I am ever so thankful when we get time where we can concentrate effort toward decisions that need made and things that need talked about!!

It was SO so good!!

I even bought a notebook while we were there because we felt like we needed to write things down.


Guess what we did Thursday?

More of the same, yes!!

I DID NOT want to go inside at all that day!!


Friday was our last day.

Wah.

We took another long walk that morning.

The weather was so incredibly perfect.

I saw a house for sale and told Blake it was perfect for us.

Then we saw that alligator in the water – do you see him there?

No thank you!!

We honestly talk a lot about spending several months in Florida each winter, but keeping our roots here in Wisconsin of course!!

After our long walk we sat around the pool – I was reading a book in the shade but enjoyed every single second.


Around 11 Friday morning it was time to shower and pack up to get ready to leave.

I am so glad I took some photos of our lovely home away from home!

We would definitely stay there again – it was our best spot so far!!

And this was our fifth year visiting Naples – our sixth if you count the year we took the children!


We had one last stop to make before heading home!

A gluten-free bakery that has the best cinnamon rolls on this planet.

I am just taking everyone else’s word for it because I do not eat grains or sugar!

We wanted to bring some back for the kiddos and we did.


Then we headed to the airport and got on our flight to head back home.

I was so ready to see the children, be in our own bed, and be back in my kitchen – but it was a bittersweet goodbye for sure!!

I even jokingly said to Blake “See you next year, honey!”, ha, ha!!


Mr. Blake Moschel, I cannot thank you enough for making this trip happen!!

Life is and was SO full I did not think it would be possible, but it was!!

I am so very grateful for the time we had together, the conversations, the good food, the genuine rest, and the time in the sunshine.

I am even more grateful that you see the need for us to purpose time for each other and our marriage – it means the world to me!

You know quality time is my love language!!

Just looking back at all of these photos and thinking about our time there has my heart so full!!

You are my favorite, babe!

I would go anywhere with you!!!

And I LOVE YOU MOST!!

I cannot wait until next year’s trip, Lord willing!!